Intermittent Fasting to Lose Fat 5 Weeks Into Cycle?

Hey guys, not sure if this is the appropriate category to post my question but will try, if moderators consider it appropriate, please do not delete but move to a better fitting category.

So, I am an average Joe hobby weightlifter and bodybuilder, with like 5-6 years of training experience and a few cycles behind my back. 4 weeks ago I started Test Enanthate only cycle, with legit pharma gear (I live in Eastern Europe where its easily obtainable), so after trying previous 2 cycles with 500 mg/weekly, now I’m running it 750 mg/week. It could be even a bit more, because that gear, 3 ampules x 1 ml fill the syringe at about the 3.5 ml mark, but anyway. My initial stats at the start were 88-89 kg (195 lbs) at 9-10 % BF, 186 cm (6 ft 1"). I train heavy, sometimes twice a day, with supersets and dropsets etc. however I do like to eat generously :smiley: and although I track my calories and macros, sometimes I go overboard and eat up to 4000 cal and more daily, which I know is in excess and contributes for dirty bulk. I dont wanna bulk dirty cause I gain easily weight and fat, and at the end of the 5th week of the cycle, I’ve gained almost 10 kg (22 lbs) and defnitely lost definition.
I am getting worried not to get too much fat and wonder whether to apply IF protocol for 1-2 weeks, as I’ve had good results from it in the past, while cutting, or is this going to stagnate my gains. I`ve heard that the gear should protect the muscle while fasting, so that the fat-burning effect would be noticeable. My aims are lean bulk or recompositioning, dont wanna become a bouncer :smiley:
Thanks beforehand and cheers

You can still eat a ton of calories while doing IF. You would just have a smaller windows to consume the calories, which may result is lower total intake. The bottom line is if you don’t eat enough then there will be no gains. You can certainly use IF to help control over eating and so long as your total caloric intake is enough for slow steady growth you will be okay.

So at around 5th week you have gained give it take 20 lbs. First remember there are the 2-5 pounds you get from the glycogen levels going up at the beginning of the cycle, basically your blood gets more nutrients in it. Then there is the bloat and water retention you get from any injectable hormone and you are using long chain so there is more retention, I’d say anywhere from 5-10 lbs. I didn’t notice anything about Aromatase Inhibitors so I presume the extra estrogen is definitely getting closer to 10lbs of water vs just 5. What I getting at is your definition is being hidden by the water retention under the skin and on top of the muscle. You are doing better than you think, you just can’t see it right now. Once you stop the cycle and start PCT then all of a sudden you will see the definition come through. If you are worried about the water retention on cycle then look into an Aromatase Inhibitor like arimidex or aromasin. If you don’t want to worry about crashing your estrogen while dialing in the AI dose then look into Proviron. Proviron isn’t an AI but it has anti estrogenic properties and tends to help a lot of guys with water retention on cycle.

Just about any AAS will help keep muscle during a caloric deficit but some do a much better job vs others. With you running just test then look at tests strong points, it’s a good solid gainer with some decent cutting available. If I were you, and I usually do something along these lines, adjust you diet for basic lean mass gains. The added muscle will help you burn more calories throughout the day. I am not huge on cardio, I do it but I don’t really like it. I have systematically gained lean mass to the point that I loose fat and gain definition just walking around and living my life. My total lean mass burns more calories than my basic clean diet takes in. That lean mass is key to any sort of long term body type adjustment. Diets don’t work because they end up waisting muscle with the fat loss then the body has to recover and ends up gaining more fat back.

I don’t think intermittent fasting would really hurt you but I think you would get better long term results if you concentrated on lean mass gains. The fasting might create a situation where it takes days after you stop the fasting for your body to switch back to trying to gain. Ultimately you want your metabolism up and running all the time or as close to that as possible, the fasting might slow your metabolism significantly. The fasting might even make your body think it needs to store everything it can because food is not coming regularly. I would look up how long on average it takes for our bodies to switch into “store everything in the form of fat.” One day of fasting shouldn’t do it but every other day for a week might and remember everything might be quicker because of the huge levels of test in your system.

If you just end up really not happy with the results then think about a proper cutting cycle that includes masteron. I know it isn’t regularly advertised as having a strong ability to preserve muscle in a caloric deficit but it most definitely does do that!

IF is stupid and even dumber on cycle. If your worried about fat gain just slow down and clean your diet up. Have one goal and keep it on cycle don’t yo yo your diet.

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I think you are all right. I should simply adjust the calorie intake to lean gains and not do yo-yo and mess around. I am running Arimidex at 1 mg/daily and doing10-15 min cardio after each workout + 1 additional cardio only session in one of the rest days. There`s definitely certain water retention which will go away after the cycle.

Thank you all for the opinions.

That is a HUGE dose of arimidex! Are you lethargic or tired all day? Are your joints hurting?

For myself, and I know i tend to need higher doses of AI vs the next guy, I would be somewhere around 0.5 mgs EOD at your dose of test.

Remember we need some estrogen just to be healthy and to build muscle.

Oh, no. On my last cycle I did 500 mg Test E/weekly and 0.5 mg Arimidex EOD, did a blood test, Estrogen was well over 100 units, 2-3 times higher than normal levels.

I havent done bloodwork now, but I figured I need the higher dose to prevent the aromatization from the high dose of Test. I know that one shouldn`t level down his estrogen to zero, but its a bit tricky to find the sweet spot, you need to experiment with the dosage and do a couple of blood tests if you want to know for sure.

What is your estrogen level when taking 1mg of arimidex daily? What’s your osteoporosis level?

Serious question - What kind of diet and program would someone have to employ to get to this point in their life?

What kind of macro breakdown works best for a lean mass gain?

Any info is appreciated.

Hello,

You all made me curious so so I did today blood test and Estradiol came at 327 pmol/L or 89 pg/ml which is relatively high. I took the last pill the day before yesterday.

I notice also that if I dont drink it every day (sometimes I have forgot, for instance when we drove away to a vacation) and after 2-3 days my nipples start hanging like overweight truck driver’s :wink: no offen to truck drivers meant ahah

Perhaps it depends also on the sensitivity, but for the test dose of 750 mg/weekly, thats a lot of test which converts to E2 if there’s nothing to stop it.

I don’t count macros I know that I would probably get better results but I just dont.

If you have 20% body fat or more then eat clean, keep the sugar low, saturated fats low, regular fat low, no refined white flour products whole gain all the way and eat at least one gram of protein per pound of personal weight.
When you get to around 10% body fat (at least this happened to me) you might start noticing your energy levels drop. This will happen at different points for everyone. When that happened I had to add in some more carbs and some fat. I just played with it. No matter what saturated fats need to be limited so no fried stuff in your regular diet. If your in the southwest limit tortillas those things can be unbelievable fat bombs. (Some are obviously worse than others)

Overall you need to be doing everything you can to build and maintain lean mass. If you have higher body fat eat in a manner where your body has to burn it’s stored fat in order to have enough energy. I am currently sitting at 230lbs right under like less than 1/4 inch under six foot (if the doctors wall was accurate) and I don’t consider it a good week if i don’t make it to the gym at least six days. I push for seven but on the seventh day it’s stuff like core and odd and ends sort of stuff, low impact. Just enough to get the body up, moving and be active. For my six main days I do a day of triceps, a day of biceps, a day of shoulder and traps, a day of back, a day of chest and a day of legs. I have never been able to gain if I don’t do concentrated isolation for each muscle group. Everyone says you need a day to recover but with how I do it I only stress one group per week. Obviously some stuff has to work on multiple days but it’s stuff like biceps engaging during back day so they are not doing the majority of work.

Really the key is eat clean, high levels of quality protein (nothing is better than egg whites), and just build lean mass. When I eat to gain obviously I am eating more than my body needs so I gain. When I am inbetween gaining runs I just have a pretty standard diet (standard for myself, it’s still clean and you will have to play with it for yourself) that I stuck close too as I have developed the lean mass. I didn’t even realize at first that I was getting this extra definition in-between gaining cycles until my girlfriend pointed it out. Since then I have tried to clean up the diet even more. The basic concept behind it is a pound of lean mass burns more calories than a pound of fat, you should look it up because it will astonish you once you try to calculate you lean mass by the amount of calories each pound burns just walking around each day. The second part of it is the regular diet in-between gaining cycles has to stay pretty close to the same thing and eventually your lean mass will be enough to burn through that steady calorie amount and then the body fat. Obviously if your steady diet is 5000 calories of shit then it won’t work. It needs to be a diet centered around clean protein and limited saturated fats, even watch the unsaturated fats. Carbs you will need to keep low until you notice that low sugar feeling then adjust accordingly.

I wish I knew more about the specifics but I don’t I have always just tried to eat clean. I bet if counting macros had been more of a thing when I started all of this back in college I would watch it now.